The Washington Post, one of the bastions of traditional legacy media, is losing some 300 journalists due to new funding cuts and a broad corporate restructuring. The cuts amount to about 30 percent of its total number of employees, per The New York Times.

Among the sections to close in these cuts was the one focused on book coverage and criticism. Ron Charles, who worked for 20 years as a book critic for the Post, was among the people who were let go, and took to Substack to describe the situation and envision the next steps for his own life and career. Charles writes,

In any case, I’m not rich enough or tired enough to retire quite yet. So long as I can flip pages — and publishers send me galleys — I intend to keep nattering on about books, authors and our imperiled literary culture. 

Cultural critic Ted Gioia picked up on the story and speculated that a number of these exiled journalists will soon be migrating to Substack, too, perhaps to start their own “channels” and regain some of their prior audience.

The Post has struggled in recent years and even saw a major dip in subscriptions back in 2024. Owner Jeff Bezos has not yet succeeded in making the company financially viable in a time when so much media and journalism is now being independently created. New online platforms like YouTube and Substack make it simple and easy for seasoned professionals to connect with people on the go. In fact, sites like Substack might just continue to be the runway former legacy media journalists land as these traditional roles continue to dry up. Consider the case of Rachael Bade, a former Politico journalist, who went independent a couple of months ago and now hosts “The Huddle,” a morning political show with former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer and Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine. Turrentine has his own formidable Substack output, and Spicer also additionally hosts his own show, both of which boast sizeable audiences.

So, despite the shrinking of The Washington Post and the tectonic movements of the media world, with the older empires starting to shrink and lose some of their former influence, journalism and cultural analysis is witnessing a renaissance of sorts in other independent domains. Of course, it remains debatable whether the decline of what were once “gatekeeping” institutions is a net positive for the country. While plenty of quality practitioners of the journalistic craft are going indie, the “new media” environs are now peopled with influencers and talking heads who lack expertise, experience, and sound knowledge. With so many new options, the average American has to practice some discernment over what content is credible. And with the surplus of AI-generated content in the mix, it gets quite difficult to parse the wheat from the chaff.

In any case, it will be interesting how institutions like the Post fare as AI and independent journalism mix up the old world of news and media. I personally don’t think these big newspapers will ever fully go under, at least not for a long time, but their relevance and influence clearly isn’t nearly as powerful as it used to be. Now, we have “citizen journalists” on X and next-door neighbors who are starting podcasts and Substacks. It’s a fascinating, brave new world indeed.